You'll Know Tomorrow

Iris Meyrud.

The second daughter of the Meyrud family had never once surrendered the top rank at her magic school. Magic theory, formula construction, mana control, practical evaluation — from the year she enrolled to the day she graduated, every single grade sat at the absolute peak. In a few subjects she found the answers faster than the professors themselves, and on the graduation exam she shattered the school's existing records.

She never bothered with false modesty about her own brilliance. There was no reason to. It wasn't as if the claim were untrue.

After graduating, her entry into the White Magic Tower — widely regarded as the finest of the four Magic Towers — had been the natural next step. Climb the ranks quickly, build a record of achievements, and become the next Tower Master. That was the plan Iris had drawn up for herself.

At least, it had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been — until this morning.

Late that night, Iris returned to her dormitory room and stared down at the paper spread across her desk.

"…What is this."

"How on earth did he do it?"

Drawn on the paper were eight circular iron plates and the trajectory that had passed through them — the Chogitan Leon had demonstrated that morning.

But Chogitan was not a spell used that way.

First you aimed in one direction and fired. After striking the first target, you calculated the next set of coordinates and appended a new directional formula and propulsion formula. You repeated the same process every time the projectile passed through a target. She had heard that exceptional mages began computing the next formula the instant they launched a Chogitan. Even so, the drop in output was inevitable. No matter ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠how gifted the mage, constructing a new formula always required a fraction of time.

What Leon had shown was nothing of that order.

The light that punched through the first iron plate had changed direction instantly. After that, it held its speed and trajectory all the way to the final target in one seamless line.

"…A Continuous Trajectory Formula."

A technique that bound every coordinate and every directional shift into a single formula before the spell was even cast. That would explain why the output loss had been almost nonexistent.

The problem was that a Continuous Trajectory Formula was not a technique you could apply to Chogitan. More precisely — no one in the world could apply a trajectory formula to a mana projectile of that size.

A fingernail-sized mana bullet was so small that the mana inside it moved almost as a single mass. You only needed to lock onto the center coordinate and the external flow. But the moment the projectile grew to the size of a fist, everything changed. The outer surface collided with air, the mana within spun and churned, and every turn of direction sent force shearing outward in every direction. You had to calculate the internal flows zone by zone, then rebind them so the form would not collapse.

A comparison, then. The difference between making ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠one person run a fixed path — and making hundreds of people, each trying to sprint in a different direction, run to the exact same place without a hair's breadth of error.

That was why Continuous Trajectory Formulas were used only on bead-sized mana bullets. Even then, it was a technique mages attempted only after years of training in formula computation.

Iris transferred the positions and distances of the eight iron plates onto the paper. She roughly calculated the speed of each segment, the angle of every directional change, and the mana loss at the moment of penetration.

"Air-resistance correction, flight-speed maintenance, current-coordinate update, next-coordinate calculation, directional-shift angle, rotation-radius adjustment, central-axis lock, outer-shell compression, internal mana circulation, thrust redistribution, penetration-point calculation, impact dispersion, lost-mana replenishment, trajectory-error correction, form-collapse suppression…"

A moment later, her pen stopped.

"…Fifty per second?"

She checked again. The result was the same. Leon had been computing fifty distinct formulas every single second — and in that state, he had pierced eight iron plates.

He calculated all of that inside his head…?

It was beyond anything a human being could endure. A single slip in the sequence and the entire formula would have collapsed. Even if he had forced it through by sheer will, his mind would have given out long before the spell was complete.

And yet Leon had been fine. His breathing never faltered. There was no trace of pain on his face. He had even asked to try it one more time — looking for all the world as if he had no idea what he had just done.

"…He's not human."

The Fireball he had launched afterward was the same.

Ordinary fire magic always left a mark. Soot at the point of explosion, surfaces melted by heat, fragments scattered in every direction. No matter how precisely you controlled the output, you could never completely stop the heat from bleeding outward. And it wasn't a problem unique to fire magic. Even light-attribute magic — considered the cleanest of all offensive schools — left scorch marks and cracks around the point of impact.

Leon's Fireball had none of that. No great explosion. Not so much as a speck of stone dust. Only the portion the Fireball passed through had vanished in a clean circle — as if the stone that had occupied that space had never existed in the first place.

"What is that person…?"

A direct disciple of the Tower Master, perhaps. Or a secret weapon raised in secret by some great mage who had hidden his name. Either way, he was clearly no ordinary man.

Meanwhile — what was Leon, the very person occupying every corner of Iris's thoughts, actually doing?

Iris looked back down at the paper on her desk.

"…Not yet."

No matter how extraordinary Leon's Chogitan and Fireball had been, she had not fully lost. Theory and practice were different things. Hitting fixed targets and facing living monsters were entirely separate problems. Inside the Tower, monsters could leap out from beyond your field of vision, and there were zones where mana refused to gather properly.

During her years at magic school, Iris had climbed to the tenth floor of the Tower under her own power. In real combat experience, at least, she held the advantage.

"It'll be different in the Tower."

She would show him tomorrow. What the magic of a true veteran looked like.

Iris made that vow to herself and lay down on her bed. But even after she closed her eyes, the trajectory of light that had pierced eight iron plates refused to leave her mind for a long while.

"…That concludes everything confirmed today."

The instructor finished his report. Celia leafed slowly through the documents on her desk — a Chogitan that had pierced eight iron plates, a trajectory presumed to be a Continuous Trajectory Formula, and a Fireball that had punched clean through its target without leaving a single mark on the surroundings. For the work of one person in a single day, every result was unsettling.

"Mm. That'll be all. You can go."

"Yes, ma'am."

The instructor bowed and left the Tower Master's office.

Click.

The door shut, and Hermann — seated on the sofa across from her — spoke.

"I had my doubts, but it was a Continuous Trajectory Formula after all."

"The real question is who taught him that…"

Celia traced the trajectory written on the document with one finger.

"Setting that aside — his computational ability is anything but ordinary. It's as if he has hundreds of brains."

"The Fireball is a problem as well."

"I didn't even think it was a Fireball at first."

Celia recalled the round hole that had been punched through the warehouse wall. Even then, aside from a bit of dust, there had been almost no explosion residue. But according to the report, on the training grounds he had pierced the target cleanly without leaving so much as powder behind. His precision had climbed even higher in a matter of days.

"Any chance it's a new formula developed by another Magic Tower?"

"There is no comparable case among currently known magic."

Hermann pulled out a document from the stack beside him.

"We reinvestigated Leon's past as well. Birth registration, orphanage intake records, his movements after ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠age ten — nearly all of it checks out."

"Anything suspicious?"

"Nothing found."

The answer was brief.

"Market merchants, city guards, and the scrapyard overseer all remembered him. He has lived in the city for a long time doing odd jobs. There is no trace of contact with any particular noble house or Magic Tower, and he has never left the city for any extended period."

"A hidden master?"

"No results on that front either. At the very least, he does not appear to be an agent sent by another Magic Tower."

Celia leaned back in her chair and tilted her head.

"So he really learned all of this on his own?"

Hermann set the documents down on the desk.

"That boy never had a proper environment in which to learn magic. There is no record of him purchasing any grimoires, and he never attended a magic school. And yet, looking only at the results, he has reached a level that even High Mages would struggle to imitate."

"Based on his history alone, even calling him a genius falls short."

A faint smile touched the corner of Celia's mouth.

"He might be a genuine monster."

"There is no precedent."

Hermann's expression remained rigid.

"…Which is precisely why it is all the more suspicious."

Celia looked down at the documents in silence. The more they uncovered, the more questions piled up alongside it.

"…What do you intend to do?"

Hermann asked. Celia closed the file and turned her gaze toward the window. The Tower rising from the heart of the city stood sharp and clear even in the dark.

"We'll watch him a little longer."

"You still mean to send him straight to the thirtieth floor?"

"Mm."

Celia smiled lightly.

"If he's hiding something, it'll come out tomorrow. Things rarely go according to plan inside the Tower."

Hermann was silent for a moment.

"And if there is nothing unusual at all?"

Celia's gaze drifted from the window back down to the desk — to the name written at the top of the page.

Leon.

If every one of those achievements truly sprang from a single person's talent alone…

The corner of Celia's mouth slowly curved upward.

"…Then we keep him."

"Pardon?"

She brushed the tip of her finger lightly across Leon's name.